Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.

When Anne Mitchell-Hedges found a crystal skull at a Belizean excavation site, rumors spread like wildfire. People claimed that the skulls possessed supernatural powers. Science has debunked these claims, but they still persist. Why?

Step 1: Start with the premise that any tragic incident is a massive, intricate government conspiracy.

Step 2: Denounce any information presented by a mainstream, non-conspiracy source that directly counters the predetermined conspiracy narrative as corrupt and part of the conspiracy.

Step 3: Monitor these same mainstream sources for information that supports the predetermined conspiracy narrative, even if only remotely. Mainstream media reporting mistakes that support your conspiracy (or any conspiracy really) must be treated as rare moments of truth, glimpses inside the Matrix. Any mainstream media reports in favor of the conspiracy should be treated like the word of God. Spam that information everywhere.

Step 4: Imagination is the same thing as undeniable fact. There is nothing wrong with manipulating Youtube videos and using Photoshop to edit information to make it more obvious for the stupid sheeple to understand.

Step 5: Reject the skeptics to the conspiracy theories aggressively. Call them out for being sheep, shills, Cointelpro, paid agents, et cetera. Do not ever doubt yourself, because if you think they are any of these nouns, then it is undeniably true. After all, the conspiracy theory you are trying to wake the world up to is a fact. Only a sheep would think otherwise.

Step 6: Bring up the founding of the Federal Reserve, the Bay of Pigs, The Gulf of Tonkin, and other well known deceptive schemes by the government often (every conversation if need be.) These actions were confessed by government, therefore every other conspiracy theory is true!

Step 7: Cite declassified documents often, as they are invaluable. If the government reports that a secret program was started and ended 60 years ago- DO NOT BELIEVE THEM. The secret programs for sure are still occurring and are now more massive, sinister, and successful than before.

Step 8: Remember that most of witnesses and victims involved in conspiracy event are actors. Medical examiners, emergency responders, the police, reporters, they are almost all in on it. The innocent people caught up in the conspiracy were either killed or have been threatened by the conspirators and are too afraid to come forward (or they possibly never existed to begin with.)

Step 9: Blitz the world with the truth until everyone deletes you on Facebook or you are banned from your favorite web sites. Lay low for a period, regroup at your favorite alternative web sites, get encouragement and reinforcement from the other awakened truth seekers, and start the process all over again with a new conspiracy.

It’s happened to all of us. Some friend we had in elementary school or from an old job is all of a sudden making super weird comments on Facebook, or you’re in a bar and some random [person] is trying to talk to you about fluoride for some reason. It’s not always immediately clear. Like, I realized one day that people saying crazy things were always following it up with “Do your own research!” and then finally discovered that it was sort of a “buzzphrase” for conspiracy theorists.

So, I thought I’d compile a list of the ways to know that someone in your life is starting to head down to tin foil hat alley.

1. Says insane things (probably about chemtrails), and if you dispute, insists that you “Do your own research!”

“I’m a University of YouTube graduate!”

This is one of the earliest signs of this type of crazy- and it’s also a major Glenn Beck-ism. I don’t know about you, but when I state a fact, I’m usually able to explain that fact. Especially if it’s something that may be controversial.

For instance, I do not so much believe that Joan Crawford beat her children. This is a thing that most people believe, because of the movie “Mommie Dearest”– however, when asked to explain, I don’t yell “Do your own research!” at people, I explain that all of the other children (save for Christopher) have refuted Christina’s book, as well as Crawford’s actual personal assistant, and Myrna Loy, and pretty much anyone else who was around during that time. I’m not saying I’m 100% definitely correct on this, but I err on the side of “probably not.”

Still, I don’t throw out something weird, get mad at people for not immediately taking me at my word, and then yell at them to do their own research. I mean, if they want to, that’s fine, but I’m usually quite able to support my arguments.

UGH. These people and their fluoride. They love to make up crap about how the government puts fluoride in the water to keep us dumb and rebellion-resistant, like no one has ever seen “Dr. Strangelove” before or something. This is usually what they start with, probably because it sounds slightly more realistic than like, Lizard People.

It is not, however, true. At all. And yes, I’ve “done my research.” But don’t tell that to these people, especially if they are drunk at a bar, because they will, in fact, start screaming at you about it. Fluoride and the “vaccinations cause autism” thing are like the gateway drugs into tin-foil hat land.

3. Rejecting the tyranny of paragraph breaks

I swear to god, this is a thing. Whenever I see a comment that’s just a giant block of text with no breaks in it, I immediately just go “Welp, this one’s gonna be crazy” and I am pretty much always right. I don’t know why this is a thing, it just is.

4. When a person who you already kinda know isn’t too swift starts trying to pretend that they are some kind of intellectual who is totally going to school you on “how things are in the world.”

I hate to say this, but it’s true. It’s always the dumb ones. I feel bad, because like, they’re usually just coming across this stuff for the first time and it is totally blowing their minds. Like, I already know that some people think that the Rothschilds control the world and that there are Mason things on the dollar bill and also THE MOON LANDING WAS FAKED or whatever. I’ve known for years, and I’ve already figured out that it’s all bullshit.

The more you read about history, the more you realize that people are so not getting it together to form a whole “New World Order” anytime soon. While there have been “conspiracy” type things throughout history (MKUltra, Tuskeegee, Project Paperclip, the COINTELPRO that actually existed and not the one people pretend still exists), they have been discovered fairly quickly. Because someone always has a big mouth.

FAKE DENTISTRYOne of the suspicious features of this fake pre-Columbian Aztec skull is the impossibly perfect teeth.Credit: James Di Loreto/Smithsonian Institution

Humans seem to have a predilection for fake quartz-crystal Aztec skulls. Since the 1860s, dozens of skull sculptures have appeared on the art market purporting to be pre-Columbian artifacts from Mesoamerica, that is, created by the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America prior to Spanish exploration and conquest in the 16th century. Three such skulls have graced the collections of major museums on both sides of the Atlantic: the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the British Museum in London, and the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.

As early as the 1930s, some experts began to have doubts about the authenticity of the skulls, says Margaret Sax, a conservation scientist at the British Museum. But for a long time researchers “didn’t have the scientific means to follow up” on their hunches, she adds. Over the past two decades researchers at all three museums have capitalized on analytical science innovations to show that these peculiar skulls are not unusual Aztec artifacts but post-Columbian fakes.

Nowadays the market for crystal skulls is limited to Indiana Jones fans, New Age devotees, and people in the goth and punk subcultures. But in the 1860s, when the skulls appeared on the market, many people in Europe sported little skeletons on rings, pendants, or other personal trinkets to remind them of their own mortality, says Jane Walsh, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. It was a French dealer named Eugène Boban who capitalized on this fascination with the macabre, as well as Europe’s growing interest in and ignorance of Mesoamerican artifacts, to slip some of the first sham skulls into museums.

GENUINE GOBLETResearchers looked at the surface of this real Aztec artifact to help determine that the crystal skulls were frauds.Credit: Museum of Oaxacan Cultures

Walsh has traced fake crystal skulls at the British Museum and the Quai Branly Museum back to Boban, who sold them to art dealers who then sold them to the museums more than 100 years ago. The Smithsonian skull, however, showed up in the mail in 1992, as an anonymous donation. Its arrival motivated Walsh to contact the British Museum to discuss the skulls. That conversation catalyzed the scientific and historical research that finally proved the objects were phonies.The British and American team were particularly suspicious of the skulls because they hadn’t come from documented archaeological sites. And something was wrong with the skulls’ teeth. Although skulls do appear as motifs in Aztec art, most representations of teeth in authentic pieces reflect the dentistry—or lack thereof—of the time. The teeth in the suspect skulls seemed too linear, too perfect, Sax explains.

So the team took a closer look at the skulls’ surfaces. As a benchmark, they borrowed a legitimate Mesoamerican crystal goblet from the Museum of Oaxacan Cultures, in Mexico. Then they used scanning electron microscopy to compare these surfaces.

It turns out that the surface of the authentic goblet has irregular etch marks, a sign that the pieces were carved with hand-held tools. But the surface of the suspect skulls have regular etch marks, evidence that they were made with rotary wheels and hard abrasives, which appeared only after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Walsh says.

Looking even closer at the British Museum’s skull, the team discovered green, wormlike inclusions in the rock. Raman spectroscopy revealed that the inclusions were an iron-rich chlorite mineral. Although this kind of trace impurity is found in rock crystal from Brazil or Madagascar, it is not found in Mexican crystal, Walsh says.

The team also noticed a small deposit of something curious in the Smithsonian’s skull. By using X-ray diffraction they discovered . . . MORE . . .

Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.

Last week the world has seen yet another failed doomsday prediction, but far from this being the preserve of either the Mayans or modern day “preppers”, established religions and even esteemed scientists have also had their fair share of failed predictions. However, now we are left wondering what the next big end of world prediction will be.

Numerous, by Kelly Rogers , out now on Amazon Kindle, is a thriller written around the Papal Prophecy, by Ireland’s first ever saint, Archbishop Malachy, who correctly predicted each and every pope until the very last, as well as his own death. The 900-year-old manuscript still lies in the Vatican archives.

Modern-day readers may believe that this book has no relevance to our lives today, but think again. St Malachy’s prophecy predicts that the final pope will usher forth “The End. When the terrible judge will judge his people.” We currently see the penultimate pope, Joesph Ratzinger , in the Vatican and exactly what “The End” will be we can only guess at… But we’re sure this is going to be the next big thing in doomsday predictions!

The Modern Day Doomsdayer

Californian preacher Harold Camping took a very public climb-down in May 2011 when his end-of-the-world prediction failed to materialise, after a nationwide billboard and radio advert campaign. This was not Camping’s first failed foray into the world of divination; he inaccurately predicted the world would end on the 6th September 1994 and consequently some followers gave up homes, savings and jobs. When the end failed to occur he revised the date to September 29 and then again to October 2.

He said, “I don’t have any responsibility. I’m only teaching the Bible. I don’t have spiritual rule over anybody… except my wife.” We imagine everyone, including his long-suffering wife, will take any further predictions with a liberal pinch of salt.

2000 reasons to not believe

Many luminaries over the centuries predicted 2000 and the end of time, including: Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy; Edgar Cayce , world famous US psychic and healer; Sun Myung Moon , founder of the Unification Church; and even the esteemed and revered Sir Isaac Newton .

This also has to be the least original prophecy in history. At the turn of the first millennium many people expected Christ to return and ‘the end’ to arrive with him. Our prediction: expect more of the same for the year 3000.

The TV Evangelist turned would-be US president

Ex-Baptist minister and US TV evangelist Pat Robertson said that “God told him the end was coming”, but to avoid catastrophe we all needed to “pray real hard”. We can only assume that the world did just that as no cataclysm arrived.

Robertson’s power of prophecy has also evaded him in his own life; evidently not seeing his total defeat as a Republican presidential candidate in 1988.

False Witness

We all know how tenacious Jehovah Witnesses can be when it comes to door knocking and it seems that they’re equally as dogged when it comes to doomsday predictions. They first predicted Armageddon in 1914, when disaster failed to appear they revised their prophecy to 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994.

No Method in the Madness

Charles Wesley , one of the founders of the Methodist church, predicted the end in 1794, as did the Shakers. Despite his obvious error Charles’ brother, John, joined in and predicted that 1836 would be the year of the Great Beast and would herald the beginning of the end.

However, Charles Wesley clearly had his shaky convictions; he begged to be buried in an Anglican not Methodist grave just before his death.

The Millerites were never right

William Miller (founder of the Millerites, now the Seventh Day Adventists) predicted the end would come between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. The dates came and went with nothing occurring so the date was revised to April 18th. Again nothing happened and the date was changed to October 22, 1844. Miller continued to wait for the end until his death in 1849, which certainly was the end for him. However, the modern-day church that Miller founded continues to claim to this day that the date was correct, but as it was an event that occurred in Heaven it went entirely unnoticed by us on the Earthly plane.

The Jupiter Effect

The Jupiter Effect was written in 1974 by two astrophysicists, John Gribben and Stephen Plagemann . Predicted for 10thMarch 1982 when all nine planets would align and create a gravitational pull that would cause a “huge increase in sunspots, solar, flares, and/or earthquakes”. Gribben later claimed it never was a prophecy but a theoretical “what if?” However, people did believe that it was actually going to happen, the credentials of the theorists adding weight to the calculations. And indeed an effect was measured on Earth – a 0.04 millimetre high tide!

Note: by the time you read this, you won’t need to read this because you’ll know the world didn’t end as some people said it would on December 21, 2012. Doomsday predictions are a dime a dozen. Why anyone believes them is the real mystery.

In a nutshell: The Mayan prophecy for 2012 is something made up by people who don’t know much about the Maya. The Maya didn’t predict anything, much less the end of the world.

The idea that the Maya predicted the end of the world on 12-21-2012 is a hoax.

The Maya had several calendars and one of them starts over in 2012. Some people think this means they predicted the end of the world. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they like to scare people. The Maya didn’t predict the end of the world. But even if they did, so what? The Maya couldn’t even predict the end of their own civilization, which collapsed over one thousand years ago. Anyway, anyone can predict anything about the future. That doesn’t mean their prediction will come true.

Mayan civilization was at its peak for over 750 years in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and parts of Central America. The Maya, like all farming societies, had to study things that affect the soil and the growth of plants. They studied the pattern of the seasons and knew when to plant and when to store up food for the dry months. Their studies led them to create several calendars. We don’t really know much about these calendars. For example, we know that the Long Count Calendar—the one that ends on 12-21-2012—began about 5,000 years ago on August 11, 3114 BCE. We don’t know why the Maya started their calendar on that date and we don’t know why they ended it on 12-21-2012. We don’t even know if 12-21-2012 is the actual date the Long Count Calendar ends. All we know is that the Maya reset this calendar to day 0 every 1,872,000 days, a period known as The Great Circle. We don’t know why they thought this number was important. It’s a big number and amounts to more days than the oldest Egyptian pyramids have been around.

We know that the Maya had a large empire, but they were not able to solve some important problems. They had too many people on too little land. They destroyed their own environment by cutting down too many trees and by farming in ways that ruined their soil. Climate change brought long periods with no rain. Why should we think the Maya prophets would be any better at seeing the distant future than failed prophets of other times and other peoples?

The fact is that anybody can predict the end of the world, but nobody knows when it will happen.

IZAMAL, Mexico, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Thousands of mystics, New Age dreamers and fans of pre-Hispanic culture have been drawn to Mexico in hopes of witnessing great things when the day in an old Maya calendar dubbed “the end of the world” dawns on Friday.

But many of today’s ethnic Maya cannot understand the fuss. Mostly Christian, they have looked on in wonder at the influx of foreign tourists to ancient cities in southern Mexico and Central America whose heyday passed hundreds of years ago.

For students of ancient Mesoamerican time-keeping, Dec. 21, 2012 marks the end of a 5,125-year cycle in the Maya Long Calendar, an event one leading U.S. scholar said in the 1960s could be interpreted as a kind of Armageddon for the Maya.

Academics and astronomers say too much weight was given to the words and have sought to allay fears the end is nigh.

But over the past few decades, fed by popular culture, Friday became seen by some western followers of alternative religions as a day on which momentous change could occur.

“It’s a psychosis, a fad,” said psychologist Vera Rodriguez, 29, a Mexican of Maya descent living in Izamal, Yucatan state, near the center of the 2012 festivities, the site of Chichen Itza. “I think it’s bad for our society and our culture.”

Via ScienceCasts: Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday – YouTube.NASA recently released a press release and video for December 22, explaining why the world didn’t end, since they are so confident it will not occur. This video was released several days before the supposed apocalypse that some believe will occur on December 21. This date refers to the “end” of the ancient Mayan calendar that many think signifies the end of the world due to a Mayan prophecy.

NASA already debunked every single possible doomsday and apocalypse claim in a video released earlier this year. But NASA wants to make sure that they are clear the Mayans will be wrong this time and say the entire doomsday scenario is a misconception from the very beginning.

The failed Mayan apocalypse ramblings could be a positive awakening for humanity, but it won’t be. Read on for why I’m not optimistic.

Sorry but I can’t not talk about the supposed Mayan apocalypse hubbub. I just think that we can learn some lessons from this whole thing. I mean, we laughed at Harold Camping for his absurd pronouncements about the end of the world last year (twice as the math was slightly off).

For starters, the Mayans never made such a prophecy. Even if they did — so what!? The obsession with what the Mayans may or may not have said/thought seems in part to be due to the romantic (false) notion that ancient societies were in some sort of wonderful place, in harmony with nature and the cosmos.

My basic premise

Claims such as those made about a mysterious Planet X destroying the Earth or any other…

Some say the world will end in fire; some say ice. Lately, screenwriters and apocalypse enthusiasts have preferred natural cataclysms as their world-killers. As for when the end will arrive, those folks who claim to be in the know have an affinity for stamping 2012 as the Earth’s sell-by date.

Why 2012? The answer traces back to true believers’ interpretations (and reinterpretations) of Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce and various other ambiguous and nonscientific sources. Some armchair eschatologists have narrowed the expiration date further, to Dec. 21, 2012 — when, they argue, the Mayan Long Count calendar ends its 5,125-year cycle. However, experts agree that the Mayans themselves did not believe that the world would end on this date, so feel free to buy green bananas on Dec. 19, 2012 (see: MacDonald).

The lack of scientific evidence for the coming apocalypse hasn’t deterred believers from trotting out scientific theories to serve as evidence of imminent mass destruction. One of the most remarkable ideas they’ve chosen to flog is the pole shift hypothesis, in which the Earth’s crust and mantle (or outermost layers) move as one piece. Pole shift might send the poles sliding toward the equator, swing North America poleward or produce any arrangement that might result from turning a globe in your hands.

People have been batting around some version of the pole shift hypothesis since at least the mid-19th century and, although many of the scientific questions it attempted to answer have since been addressed by plate tectonics, it’s rooted solidly in physics. Plate tectonics and pole shifts interact and are governed by the same forces, but pole shifts, in which the outer shell of the world moves as one piece, produce very different results than plate tectonics, in which pieces of the Earth’s crust bump, grind and slide — opening seas, building mountain ranges and rearranging continents.

If a large pole shift could happen suddenly, the redistribution of land and water it caused would be nothing short of cataclysmic. In the short term, it would mean earthquakes, strange weather patterns, massive tsunamis capable of drowning parts of continents, and possibly gaps in the planet’s magnetic field — our shield against harmful cosmic rays. In the long term, the redistribution of land and water in the tropics, subtropics and poles would fundamentally alter ocean currents and the heat balance of the Earth, resulting in widespread climatological shifts. Ice caps might melt and reform elsewhere, or remain melted, driving sea levels down or up.

All of which returns us to the question: Could such a catastrophic shift occur, and if so, will it happen in 2012? We’ll tell you next —

NASA wants us all to know that it feels very confident in predicting that the world won’t end in 2012, despite what we may have read on the Internet.

The space agency recently saw fit to take its debunking hammer to persistent online tales of a fictional dwarf planet that is supposedly on a collision course with Earth, popular prophecies associated with the Mayan calendar, and other doomsday scenarios that fall apart under minimal scrutiny.

“Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, Dec. 21, 2012 won’t be the end of the world as we know it. However, it will be another winter solstice,” NASA associates behind a new website called Beyond 2012 wrote Wednesday in a Google+ post.

Some of the more popular apocalyptic theories revolve around a rogue planet called Nibiru supposedly discovered thousands of years ago by the ancient Sumerians, which some believe is going to collide with our planet next month. Variations on this theme call the doomsday rock Planet X or peg the real dwarf planet Eris as the harbinger of death from the skies, while a recent strain of this myth tries to tie the whole thing in with the supposed end of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012.

Beyond 2012 is dedicated to debunking such pseudo-science. There is no Nibiru or Planet X that’s been observed by astronomers and if they really were on a path to hit the Earth in a couple weeks, they’d be visible to the naked eye by now. Eris “is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles,” the site explains.

The supposedly abrupt end of the Mayan calendar at the upcoming winter solstice? It’s not “evidence” that ancient Mesoamerican chronometrists had some mystic knowledge of when the world would end—it’s actually just the end of one of the cycles they used in devising their calendar.

Other doomsday hokum countered on the Beyond 2012 site includes a supposedly imminent reversal in the Earth’s rotation, the onset of giant solar storms, and a fanciful array of disastrous events somehow set in motion by a rare alignment of the planets.

Just when you think the 2012 crazy train couldn’t fly any further off the rails, i bring you Tolec from the Andromeda Council. He sets the record straight on all this 2012 stuff (I really love the part where he says “Time will begin to go away throughout all of 2013″). From his video description:

The electromagnetic particles that will be flowing & interchanging between the planets during the 12.21.12 alignment will be highly magnified and highly supercharged when they reach Earth. They will penetrate the crust, through the Earth and down into its core. At the actual moment of alignment it will cause the Earth to pause, for only a moment, and this process will completely transform the core of our planet to a completely new kind of energy form & source. This new energy form, in the language spoken on the Andromeda Council biospheres, the language of the Mirach star system in the Andromeda constellation, by the Andromeda Council scientists, is called: “sar”.

This will be the first time cosmic transformational event of this type ever… for a planet. Time will begin to go away throughout all of 2013. And Earth will continue her evolution & transformation process into becoming a higher dimensional world in January 2014.

If you’re still in need of even more crazy, i suggest going over to Tolec’s web page and scroll down to “Time of Transition for Planet Earth.”

There you will learn all about the “vibrational changes” the earth will begin going through starting on 12/21/2012, how the earth will experience “continued geophysical changes, earthquakes, volcanoes going off, wave events, [that] will all continue to happen throughout the last months of 2012, into March 2013 [and beyond] when the final rotation of the 90 degree shift of Earth’s crust happens with the present day East/West orientation of the continents moving into their new North/South orientation” and how, during the year 2013, “every living thing from the largest to the smallest will be offered the opportunity to change, to evolve, into 4D, fourth dimensional life.”

French officials ban access to sacred mountain which believers claim will be refuge from ‘Mayan apocalypse on December 21′

Rumours say the mountain will burst open on December 21 to reveal an alien spaceship which will save those nearby from the apocalypse

French police will control access to the mountain and village to stop expected hordes of New Age fanatics, sightseers and journalists

December 21 is the estimated end of the Mayan long calendar, which some believes marks the end of the world as we know it

The Pic de Bugarach, south-west France: Online rumours claim that on December 21 the mountain will burst open to reveal an alien spaceship that will rescue those nearby from the apocalypse

Fears the end of the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world this coming December have run rife on the internet in recent years.

Less well known is the rumour that one particular mountain in south-west France will burst open on that day revealing an alien spaceship which will carry nearby humans to safety.

Well, if you were counting on that possibility to save you from the apocalypse, prepare to be disappointed. French officials have banned access to the Pic de Bugarach to avoid a rush of New Age fanatics, sightseers and, above all, journalists.

A hundred police and firefighters will also control approaches to the tiny village of the same name at the foot of the mountain, and if too many people turn up, they will block access there too.

Believers say the world will end on December 21, 2012, the end date of the ancient Mayan calendar, and they see Bugarach as one of a few sacred mountains sheltered from the cataclysm.

Is the world going to end right in the middle of the upcoming holiday season? While that wouldn’t be good for retail sales, many people feel that Dec. 21, 2012 is a date that will linger in our minds forever — assuming we all survive the calamities that are supposedly headed our way.

The ancient Mayan civilization calendar is believed to end this year on Dec. 21. And somehow, through word-of-mouth, movies, books, the Internet, etc., a cult-like belief system has sprung up in our culture suggesting any number of awful things will take place on that date.

On the other hand, there are some who believe the December date heralds not doom and gloom, but a more positive transformative experience for Earth and its inhabitants.

It all sounds rather sketchy, especially to a scientist.

“It’s all a hoax, and it’s based on absolutely no factual information. None of the things that are supposed to happen are real, and so it’s kind of hard to even have a scientific discussion about what they’re worried about because there’s no science there,” said David Morrison, a leading space scientist and director of the Carl Sagan Center for Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute in California.

Watch this Doomsday video with David Morrison

While SETI scientists are involved with the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence, they also want to quiet any fears the public has about the alleged Doomsday.

To that end, Morrison created a special Doomsday 2012 Fact Sheet in September that’s posted on both SETI and NASA websites.

According to this fact sheet, “opinion polls suggest that one in 10 Americans worry about whether they will survive past December 21 of this year.”

“Think about that. It means when you walk down the street and look around, there are 25 million people who presumably have no stake in anything because their world’s going to end in [December]. That is scary,” Morrison told The Huffington Post.

When Morrison was researching information for his Doomsday fact sheet, he didn’t find anything that confirmed that the Mayans left us any dire predictions.

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala’s Mayan people accused the government and tour groups on Wednesday of perpetuating the myth that their calendar foresees the imminent end of the world for monetary gain.

“We are speaking out against deceit, lies and twisting of the truth, and turning us into folklore-for-profit. They are not telling the truth about time cycles,” charged Felipe Gomez, leader of the Maya alliance Oxlaljuj Ajpop.

Several films and documentaries have promoted the idea that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts that doomsday is less than two months away, on December 21, 2012.

The Culture Ministry is hosting a massive event in Guatemala City — which as many as 90,000 people are expected to attend — just in case the world actually does end, while tour groups are promoting doomsday-themed getaways.

Maya leader Gomez urged the Tourism Institute to rethink the doomsday celebration, which he criticized as a “show” that was disrespectful to Mayan culture.

Experts say that for the Maya, all that ends in 2012 is one of their calendar cycles, not the world.

*Woo-woo (or just plain woo) refers to ideas considered irrational or based on extremely flimsy evidence or that appeal to mysterious occult forces or powers. Concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. A person who has mystical or new age beliefs.

Holy crap. Sometimes i come across stuff so … so … um … how shall i say this gently? … so STUPID i have a hard time writing about it because i’m laughing so hard.

Right off the bat you can tell just by the date of the event this is going to be magical: 12/12/12. As woo-woo decrees: if numbers look special they are special. The date 12/12/12 looks very special, doesn’t it? Like when you’re digital clock says 11:11 or 12:34 – again, very special.

The website goes on to say:

«December 2012 is being looked upon as the time of a significant spiritual shift in the collective consciousness of the planet into this new Golden Age. That’s why 12,000 people will be assembling in Wembley Arena on 12.12.12 to experience The Big Om mass sound healing event – an event with the power at a quantum level to shift the vibration of the planet – which will be live-streamed around the world.

«The Big Om is a five hour shamanic journey lead by metaphysical guru and sound healer Barefoot Doctor, starring Basement Jaxx plus introducing some of today’s leading electronic dance music acts/DJ’s plus a variety of gurus talking over the beats, in an Ibiza-Super-Club style setting, all building to The Big Om – 12,000 people chanting the biggest Om in history, miked and fed back through the system, filtered, phased, gated, sub-bass added, electronic pulse beneath, the beat building, lights swirling over the crowd, and creating a sensation the crowd feels in its knickers, leading to a collective sound-light orgasm that makes the earth move.»

Oh boy! A sound-light orgasm that makes the earth move! WOW! Wait. What? What is a sound-light orgasm? Never mind, don’t be a buzz kill … OooooooooM.

Here is their promotional video. I just watched it and i already feel enlightened and special.

What exactly is “sound healing”? According to WorldSoundHealing.org, sound healing “is the intentional use of sound to create an environment which becomes a catalyst for healing in the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects of our being.”

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

WorldSoundHealing.org continues, “The intentional use of sound adds power to the conduit, whether it is through the use of an instrument or voice. By surrendering to the highest good, we ourselves become that conduit, or instrument, for peace, for healing, change, or growth.”

So what are we Om-ing about at this event? They don’t say explicitly. But given the prominent display of the Mayan calendar apocalypse theory staring back at me from the top of their web page, i can only speculate this colossal waste of Om will be about averting the December 21, 2012 apocalypse.

Though the organizers of this non-event probably want to avoid guarantees and specifics because of legal liabilities, i can predict – with 100%, absolute certainty: One thing WON’T happen and two things WILL happen:

WON’T HAPPEN: The apocalypse.

WILL HAPPEN: Somebody will make a lot of money.

With the average ticket costing $80 (USD) and approximately 12,500 seats in Wembley Arena, somebody is raking in a cool $1,000,000 (USD) … and that doesn’t include what they’ll make on VIP seating packages, sponsorship deals, refreshments and sales of other promotional items before, during and after the event.

“On 12/12/12 at 12:12:12 AM – 12,000 enlightened souls will gather enmasse to attune to, invoke, transform and align with the pure and loving energies of our collective consciousness – and to act as a conduit for peace, healing, change and growth. By attuning ourselves to the inherently transformative powers and energies of the universal “know” we amplify and “anchor” the Earth, and the consciousness of others, by shifting the vibration of the planet at the quantum level and effecting positive changes.” (I made all that up. Pretty good, eh?)

3. When the doom and gloom fails to materialze (as expected) boast of your success!!!!!

See how this scam works? Take money out of the pockets of the gullible who give you credit for promising nothing and doing absolutely nothing.

Think about it, why are the promoters of this woo-woo fest charging people money to attend? If they really believe their own crap, they have exactly 9 days to spend their money before the apocalypse. I ought to attend this thing and ask for a refund on 12/22/12.

Conspiracists are also known for pulling this same stunt. They may predict the government will begin rounding up citizens and placing them in FEMA camps, telling us “this is going to start in the next 90 days!!!” On the 91st day when nothing has changed the conspiracists claim it was because they “got the word out”, “educated the sheeple” or “exposed the ruling elite.”

If i told you the sun won’t rise tomorrow unless you stand on your head in a bowl of chili, and you stand on your head in a bowl of chili, do you credit your head and the chili for allowing the sun to rise?

PUBLIC CONCERN ABOUT DOOMSDAY IN December 2012 has blossomed into a major new presence on the Internet. This fear has begun to invade cable TV and Hollywood, and it is rapidly spreading internationally. The hoax originally concerned a return of the fictitious planet Nibiru in 2012, but it received a big boost when conspiracy theory websites began to link it to the end of the Mayan calendar long count at the winter solstice (December 21) of 2012. Over the past year, many unrelated groups have joined the doomsday chorus, including Nostradamus advocates, a wide variety of eschatological Christian, Native American, and spiritualist sects, and those who fear comet and asteroid impacts or violent solar storms. At the time of this writing there are more than 175 books listed on Amazon.com dealing with the 2012 doomsday. The most popular topics are the Mayan calendar and spiritual predictions that the disaster in 2012 will usher in a new age of happiness and spiritual growth. Quite a few authors are cashing in with manuals on how to survive 2012.

As this hoax spreads, many more doomsday scenarios are being suggested, mostly unrelated to Nibiru. These include a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, severe solar storms associated with the 11-year solar cycle (which may peak in 2012), a reversal of Earth’s rotation axis, a 90- degree flip of the rotation axis, bombardment by large comets or asteroids, bombardment by gamma rays, or various unspecified lethal rays coming from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy or the “dark rift” seen in a nearby galactic spiral arm. A major theme has become celestial alignments: supposedly the Sun will align with the galactic center (or maybe with the Milky Way Dark Rift) on December 21, 2012, subjecting us to mysterious and potentially deadly forces.

Unlike most pseudoscience stories, there seems to be no factual core on which the Nibiru- 2012 hoax has been constructed. This is different from, for example, the claims of aliens and a crashed UFO at Roswell, New Mexico. The alien stories are a fabrication, but the core fact is that an instrumented balloon did crash in Roswell on July 7, 1947. There is no similar factual core to Nibiru—just dubious “predictions” from psychics, or the Mayans, or Nostradamus. The rest is pure fiction.

I answer questions from the public submitted online to a NASA website, and over the past two years the Nibiru-2012 doomsday has become the dominant topic people ask about. Many are curious about things they have seen on the Internet or TV, but many are also angry about supposed government cover-ups. As one wrote “Why are you lying about Nibiru? Everyone knows it is coming.” Others are genuinely frightened that the world will end just three years from now. My frustration in answering questions piecemeal motivates this “Twenty Questions” format to organize the facts and shine a skeptical light on this accumulation of myths and hoaxes.

1. What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in December 2012?

The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. Zecharia Sitchin, who writes fiction about the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, claimed in several books (e.g., The Twelfth Planet, published in 1976) that he has found and translated Sumerian documents that identify the planet Nibiru, orbiting the Sun every 3600 years. These Sumerian fables include stories of “ancient astronauts” visiting Earth from a civilization of aliens called the Anunnaki.

A Canadian spiritualist ghostbusting actor walks into a bar wearing New Age crystals and a crystal skull around his neck, goes up to the bartender, and orders a vodka. . . . No, this weird mashup is not the setup to a joke (certainly not a funny one) but instead more or less describes one of the strangest intersections of Hollywood, New Age paranormal belief, ghost hunting, and alcohol.

This story involves crystal skulls. There are many skulls in the world carved out of quartz crystal of varying sizes and designs. I’ve seen them in a lot of places, especially in South and Central America, where they are sold as tourist trinkets. The ones you can buy for a few dollars are rather plain, but the big ones (life-size or so) are steeped in myth and romance. There are only a handful of the life-size skulls in existence, and they have inspired awe for generations. They are said to be hundreds of years old and possibly of Mayan or Aztec origin.

If you know me, you know what i think of Alex Jones. He’s such an a-hole he can actually be very funny. If you know anybody who prays at the altar of Alex Jones, simply show them this video and ask them to explain their allegiance to this nitwit.

But there is a downside to this video – It’s 5 hours long (Yes! 5 hours!)!!!! Naturally i don’t expect anybody to watch the entire video, but i’ll post it here anyway for laughs or if you just need a sanity check by watching a true paranoid clown.

People actually pay good money to watch, listen and believe what this guy says. Now THAT’S entertainment!

An ancient Mayan skull stolen from Tibet by Nazis – said to have magical powers to enable humanity to survive the December 2012 apocalypse – has been dropped by a lab assistant in eastern Germany, chipping its chin.

What would the world be without UFO’s falling from the sky, shadow governments watching our ever move, and big brother trying to keep you down. These are the 25 most popular conspiracy theories out there.